Some youths of the South West Region, under the umbrella of Southwest Indigenous Youth Cultural and Development Movement (SOWIYCUDEM), are joining efforts to ensure that they get their place as indigenes of the region.

With the motto: 'peace for sustainable development', the movement, which has been in existence for the past six months, has as objectives, among other things to promote the culture of peace, youth empowerment, fight against social ills, promote the cultures of the region etc.

In an exclusive chat with The Sun recently, the founding president of SOWIYCUDEM, Hon Ngomba Rudolf (Alternate MP for Fako East Constituency) explained that“It is a movement set to cater for the wellbeing of the youths of the southwest region. We are out for development, to work strictly under the ambit of our objectives in contributing our own quota in the development of our region”.

According to Hon Ngomba, there is a need for the youths to rally as one force because “When you look at the youths of southwest, you observe that they are lagging behind in terms of employment. Our region is a very promising one and there are many developmental projects in the pipeline. If we do not set movement like this that will cater for the wellbeing of the youths, it will be difficult to see many youths benefiting from these opportunities; this is the raison d’etre of our existence-to cater for development, seek youth employment and engage in other social welfare programmes”.

He explains that the movement is already enjoying encouragement from some South West elites, “Some of the elites we have come across have been very positive towards this idea, but they advice that we should be really serious and committed to the idea”, Hon Ngomba said.

Concerning the political stance of this new movement, Hon Ngomba emphatically says “The group is apolitical; we are not affiliated to any political party, we hope to carry out our activities in a serene atmosphere, without influence from any external force”.

He continued that the main difficulty being witnessed is “the inability of the youths to come together and reason as one man, getting the youths to embrace this idea and fully participate for their future benefit has not been very easy”.

According to the pioneer president, all youths who hail from one of the six divisions of the region, that is Fako, Manyu, Meme, KupeMwanenguba, Ndian and Lebialem, between the ages of 18-45, irrespective of their professions, should identify themselves with SOWIYCUDEM, and should not hesitate to fully participate in its activities as “The importance of this movement should not be over-emphasised; in line with our objectives, we are there to assist youths-to lobby at the necessary avenues for the youths to better themselves. There are a lot of benefits and all youths should be very serious about it, our effective presence during meetings and our contributions in all possible ways will surely see us occupy our place in our society.